Aid salary discrepancies and development workers’ performance.

This three-year research project commenced in March 2007 and is led and jointly co-ordinated by Professor Stuart Carr (Poverty Research Group, Massey University) and Professor Mac MacLachlan (Centre for Global Health, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland).

According to the Paris Declaration best practice in aid work means pay should be aligned and harmonised across worker groups (World Bank, 2005). Although pay may not be a primary motive for development workers, discrepancies in pay nonetheless have the potential to influence perceptions of organisational justice, which can in turn affect work performance. Moreover, because injustice is a motivation for much aid itself, perceptions of unfairness in aid work may inherently undermine its necessary constituents, especially cooperation and capacity building.

This project explores the effects of aid salary discrepancies in the health, education and business sectors of six countries: the landlocked economies of Malawi and Uganda; the transition economies of India and China; and the island economies of the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. Bringing together an international team of psychologists, sociologists, management experts, educationalists, and economists from 10 different countries this project focuses on the human dynamics of aid salary discrepancies and their significance for capacity building in low-income countries.

The ADD-UP Project is funded by the Joint DFID-ESRC Scheme for Research on International Poverty Reduction.

The Department for International Development (DFID) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) formed a strategic partnership in August 2005 to provide a new joint funding scheme. The scheme aims to enhance the quality and impact of social science research addressing the key international development goal of reducing poverty amongst the poorest countries and peoples of the world. The scheme fosters high-quality basic research that enhances understanding, develops thinking and facilitates policy on this most difficult and fundamental issue.

For further information about The Poverty Research Group and the ADD-UP Project please follow the links below or from the left menu bar above, or contact us.